Features

9/11 Truthers, Tea Parties, Birthers — conspiracy is in the air. No wonder Hollywood is embracing paranoia. Eight years after the destruction of the World Trade Center — the result of one of the most devastatingly successful conspiracies in history — Americans still take comfort in paranoia.

Scent of the Times If you'll imagine the New England Confectionary Company in Revere to be Willy Wonka's magical estate, then Union Square would be the analogous working-class outskirt from where Charlie Bucket hails.

Bringing vérité to Vogue An ardent disciple of cinéma-vérité, filmmaker (and Harvard alum) RJ Cutler has taken us behind the scenes of Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign in The War Room and into the turbulent lives of 14 Illinois teens in American High.

Titanic Gamble James Cameron captained the biggest box-office smash of all time, his Titanic having grossed nearly $2 billion worldwide. But that was 12 years ago, long before the recession appeared on anyone's radar.

The director talks Basterds Quentin Tarantino began writing the screenplay for Inglourious Basterds more than 10 years ago. When I got him on the phone, he talked about the film's long gestation and how he chose his actors.

Charlyne Yi is a hot date Who exactly is Charlyne Yi? Two years ago, she appeared — seemingly from out of nowhere — in a brief but memorable turn in Judd Apatow's Knocked Up. A closer look at Apatow's new Funny People , however, might provide a clue as to where he discovered her.

On the making of his Citizen Kane Behind every successful comedian, there's . . . a personal assistant. Who, given how egomaniacal and utterly misanthropic the funnyman in question is, is probably his best friend, too.

Elia Kazan at the HFA The arc of Elia Kazan's professional life has its origins in the Group Theatre, where he was trained as an actor and performed in the original 1930s productions of Clifford Odets's Waiting for Lefty and Golden Boy .

Iannucci and the future of political comedy After laughing at the benighted morals and intelligence and the mordant wit of the reprehensible politicos of In the Loop , I had to ask myself, why now? Wouldn't this film have made more of an impact, both politically and commercially, if it had been made, say, before the 2004 American presidential election?

"Le Film Maudit" at the HFA At some point while watching the features in the Harvard Film Archive's "Le Film Maudit" ("cursed films") series — perhaps during the "Circle of Shit" chapter in Pier Paolo Pasolini's SALÒ, OR THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM — you might ask yourself, which is more cursed, the movies or anyone unfortunate enough to be watching them?

The Hurt Locker director breaks out Although everyone makes a point of Kathryn Bigelow's gender and height and good looks, what's germane is that even if she were short and had bushy eyebrows like Martin Scorsese, she still would be directing action pictures like no one since Sam Peckinpah and Sergio Leone .

The new-wavers at the French Film Festival Last year's Boston French Film Festival featured Claude Chabrol's A Girl Cut in Two , and that, combined with this year's Chris Marker retrospective at the Harvard Film Archive and Agnès Varda's fine new The Beaches of Agnès , made it seem almost plausible that the New Wave might rise again.

Dillinger and Manhattan Melodrama In anticipation of the July 1 release of Michael Mann's Public Enemies with Johnny Depp as John Dillinger, and as part of its week-long "Classic Gangsters" series, the Brattle is screening two rarely seen films this Sunday: John Milius's 1973 Dillinger and W.S. Van Dyke's Manhattan Melodrama.

Eastern-inspired digital delights at the Brattle It's a credit to Pixar's success that so many animated films of the past decade have been compelled to sport the sheen of CGI. But now that filmmakers have wrung reality out of 1's and 0's, they're starting to cast their eyes on the next frontier.